Metrolinx staff on Sunshine List up 50% over previous year

Metrolinx CEO Bruce McCuaig addresses media Tuesday, April 2, 2013, after announcing a short list of 11 investment tools that will help decide how transit expansion is funded in the years ahead. (JENNY YUEN/Toronto Sun)

The Sunshine List shows that the provincial crown agency had 262 employees who earned more than $100,000 in 2012, up more than 50% from the previous year.

CEO Bruce McCuaig made $363,403 last year — $154,000 more than the Premier of Ontario — and an increase of $30,575 from his take home pay in 2011.

The vast majority of six-figure salaries belonged to managers.

Anne Marie Aikens, a Metrolinx spokesman, said a pay anomoly — which meant that workers got an extra cheque meant for Jan. 1 — bumped 40 more people including 23 bus drivers onto the Sunshine List.

Metrolinx is overseeing the largest transit investment in a generation in the Big Move, a 25-year transportation plan for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area, Aikens said.

“So we’ve had to hire additional highly-skilled, experienced, educated employees to ensure that we’re delivering the transit projects on time and on budget and, most importantly, safely,” she said.

The regional transportation has also taken on additional divisions in recent years such as GO Transit, the Presto fare card and the Union-Pearson express, Aikens said.

Metrolinx had 2,727 employees as of February and about 9% are on the Sunshine List, a percentage that has held constant, she said.

Tory MPP Frank Klees said he warned 18 months ago that the decision to develop Presto as a fare card system from scratch, rather than using off-the-shelf technology, would swell the size of the bureaucracy at Metrolinx.